Attracting a Happy Man (aka, the Craigslist Dating Experiment)

Why is this man trying to cut off his tongue with his fingers? Just another potential date from Craigslist….

Even more so than easy money, people want to use the Law of Attraction to attract a special someone. They usually do, even when they get less than optimal results (see above photo for an example).

My experiment with the Law of Attraction, Craigslist, and a search for a truly happy man began after one of those less-than-optimal attempts to have a great date and an embarrassing error on my part (NOT the guy in the pic, who’s an embarrassment without any help from me).

One Sunday night, I returned from an out-of-state trip and realized I had a free upcoming weekend at home–no travel, no work, no kids…and suddenly no plans. So I added a wonderful weekend of socializing to my immediate wishlist. I’d been working way too hard and hadn’t had a date in two weeks, so I decided I needed to treat myself to some male companionship.Within the next three days, I had two dates set up for the weekend; unfortunately, they were at the same time, on the same night.

I couldn’t believe what I’d done! Yeah, my mind was on something at the office and I wasn’t paying attention. It was an easy mistake–after I’d accepted one date, I agreed to dinner with someone else on a particular calendar date, thinking it was Friday night rather than Saturday night. But I wasn’t the least bit worried I’d resemble one of those silly romantic comedies where the womanizer has two dates with two women in the same restaurant at the same time. I had a strong feeling that double-booking myself wouldn’t be a problem by the time Saturday rolled around.

Sure enough, my intuition was correct. The sexy 24-year-old engineer who was new in town and wanted to take me to dinner at a fancy restaurant in Grayton Beach developed expensive car trouble on Friday evening and needed a raincheck. The yummy 30-year-old staff sergeant with movie plans texted me not long before he was to show up at my door and said he’d been called into work. I wasn’t miffed about his cold feet because he was still queasy about dating since his fiancee’ had dumped him during his recent deployment to the desert, and he asked me out many times after that. Where I was concerned was that I’d made plans for Saturday night, and damn it, I had plans for Saturday night. I knew I wouldn’t be able to schedule another date for several weeks and I deserved some romantic attention…or at least a great footrub.

From a Law of Attraction perspective, the double-booking of romantic attention and then lack of follow-through was a direct reflection of …er….me. I wanted to spend some time with someone special or someone who might become special, but–to me–neither man felt very special. I’d been talking to both for several months and had not generated the excitement to accept a date until then. They still didn’t generate enough excitement. All I could muster was a “ho-hum” and enough ambivalence that I didn’t really care if neither date manifested. And neither did.
That’s when I sat down and said, “Hey, what is it I really want this weekend? Because I don’t sense anything I really want in either man, and if I’m not excited about meeting either of them now, it’s not a good sign.” I had to know what I wanted if I was to attract a sweet experience for the weekend. Otherwise, I felt ambivalent and ho-hum and that’s what I was getting back. What I wanted, I decided, was to spend a little time with a happy man–and it didn’t hurt if he was a good kisser. The key was a HAPPY man. There are plenty enough legally available men who either aren’t emotionally available or emotionally healthy. Too many are fresh out of heartbreak and looking to latch onto anything that moves or they are embittered and defensive. I didn’t want to meet another desperate or antagonistic man, and if that meant being alone, I preferred being alone. I’ve encountered enough sad sacks to wonder if there really was a happy man out there anywhere. If I could, maybe he’d like to spend some time with me, I decided.

That’s when I fashioned an experiment around the Craigslist personal ads. It’s as good a tool as any, and my favorite productivity guru seems to recommend it for just about everything you want to test.

When I started crafting the ad, it read like a normal in-search-of ad with all sorts of rules and requirements. I crossed through it and started over from a Law of Attraction viewpoint. I wrote the ad to describe how I felt, not how I wanted someone else to feel, so that perhaps a man who was a “vibrational match” could find it easily and recognize me. Since I was in a frame of mind where I felt I didn’t NEED a relationship or a romantic partner but simply wanted someone to share some good times with, that’s what I asked to come to me. I was happy, comfortable with myself, and absolutely okay with either solitude or social fun. My ad was for a man who reflected those things–in short, an already-happy guy who didn’t need a relationship or a woman to be happy but just wanted to share the company of someone like-minded.

I told readers of my ad, “Please tell me, in a few words, why you’re happy or include a photo of you doing something that makes you happy.”

What responses I got! At least half of the emails were cock shots…erupting cock shots. Oooooo-kaaaaaaaaay. I could almost hear Esther Hicks channeling Abraham and saying, “We do not believe this one is a vibrational match for us!”

A few, like the rocket scientist above, got an immediate delete.

A solid 10% gave stellar responses but weren’t compatible with my current lifestyle or anywhere within a thousand miles of me but they really were sweet answers. Most of those were retirees in their 50’s and 60’s and even older who were traveling the planet full-time and seeing exotic sights, which is on my wishlist…but hopefully younger than that. A few were guys in their early 20’s who liked to sail or race motorcycles.

Several men–one in particular–were belligerent, demanding to know what the point was if I wasn’t there to make them happy. If they were “already happy,” then what could I possibly have to offer? Ah, they so didn’t get it!

But there was one that blew me away. It was the last response, the icing on the cake.

I opened the email, wondering what kind of photo would show what he loved doing and why this man was happy. This was by far the shortest–no long essays or extraneous pleadings or rants. The photo was of a marine in Afghanistan. His statement was a simple, “I’m happy to be alive.” I was so touched that I sat and sobbed.

For that moment, I had that floaty, happy, connected feeling that Abraham-Hicks refers to as being “in the Vortex,” or when things manifest instantly for you. My cell phone buzzed at that exact moment, alerting me to a new text message, but I ignored it for a few minutes while I focused on the marine and chatting with him. Too bad he was on the other side of the U.S. and not likely to visit my area anytime soon, but we had a lovely talk.

I thought then that my attempt to find a happy man for some weekend company had failed. Instead, it had just manifested for me at that moment of feeling utterly at one with the world, thanks to the marine, but arrived via a different and unexpected channel. I realized this later in the evening when I kissed another man good night at the door and went to sleep with a sigh.

The text messages that arrived at my “vortex” moment were from a very sweet and sexy man I was seeing on the rare occasions when he wasn’t on the road with his job and I was home and working a compatible shift. I hadn’t known he was in town that weekend or that he’d worked all day and was looking for pleasant company at the same time I was, but I ended up having a wonderful time with him that night, as I always do. I realized that in all the times we had shared each other’s company, he had always been a delight for me and I always left his company feeling blissful, sexy, and content. He not only accepted but cultivated some of the more unusual aspects of my personality, taking me places I have not been with another individual. He was truly a happy and drama-free man (Gods know, that’s rare), who could make me either laugh or blush at any given moment. In fact, to this date, I have never had a feel-bad moment in his presence.

So the Law of Attraction experiment worked, just not in the way I’d imagined, and the Craiglist responses served best to put me in a sweet state of mind so that what I wanted right then seemed to appear out of thin air.

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2 Responses

Hi, I found your page when I was searching google for sites related to this article. I have tell you, your site is brilliant. I don’t have much time at the moment to fully read your website but I have bookmarked it. I will be back in a day or two. Thanks.

Copyright by Lorna Tedder

January 25, 2010 at 2:14 PM ·

FROM KELLI:
Really enjoyed your post. Isn’t it great how Law of Attraction works, every time… no exception. To quote my favorite non-physical beings. Kelli

Thanks, Kelli– sorry your comment got lost in our switchover to the new site. I’ve moved it for you.